Chapter I: The Ascent

The Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania, 1616 A.D.

The creaking wheels of the horse-drawn carriage rumbled up and down as they slowly revolved. The car shook interminably as it clambered over the rugged and unkempt road. The clopping of horse’s hooves added to the cacophony generated by this mode of travel, disturbing the still silence of the surrounding forest. The dirt path the carriage traveled upon looked like it hadn’t been maintained for years and the forest encroaching on both sides of the road threatened to overtake the clearing through the overgrowth that had likely been created centuries before. The trees were so near that the sharp points of branches scraped along the side of the carriage where the path narrowed. The tree limbs reached out for the occupants of the car almost like a predator’s claws grasping for its prey.

The carriage climbed higher and higher over the mountain path, always ascending at a slight incline whenever the team of horses wasn’t struggling to pull the covered wagon uphill. It was late in the day, and the descending sun showed with a brilliantly orange light over a clear sky. The blood-orange rays of color shimmered as they cascaded over and down the range of the surrounding mountains. The road cut a clear path between the two largest peaks of this mountain range and led directly up to the grounds of Castle Sidexes. The castle itself was an ancient fortress that had been erected on the highest crest of the tallest mountain in the region. The air at this elevation was thin and cool and made it difficult to breathe for those unused to the height. The castle rested in a perfectly defensible position that was ideal for repelling an invading army but so remote that it was hard to believe the building was inhabited.

Curtains drawn over the side windows of the carriage prevented the setting sun from blinding those inside. The four Pierocent sisters sat in the cramped cabin, facing each other with two siblings to each side. The gnarled and neglected road caused the young women to bounce in their seats with every rise and fall of the carriage. The thin cushion covering the wooden benches they sat upon did not do nearly enough to protect their bottoms from the jostling. But despite the discomfort, none of the girls deigned to be the first to perform an action so unladylike as rubbing their sore backsides. The carriage had to be rented on the cheap due to the newfound and still bewildering circumstances the sisters had found themselves in. They had only found one man willing to drive the carriage. All the other drivers in the nearest town refused to ride this close to the castle. The locals were a superstitious folk who considered the mountains and the wilderness that surrounded them to be cursed. They claimed no one who set foot on the grounds of Castle Sidexes came out alive. An entirely preposterous notion considering Mirela, the oldest of the Pierocent sisters, had corresponded with the Count and Countess claiming lordship of the castle on several occasions.

The driver of the carriage was a vile man named Caine who had long, shaggy black hair, a dark complexion, and a sharp hooked nose. He grinned at Mirela lecherously every time she spoke with him and Mirela did not care at all for the way he leered at her younger sisters out of the corners of his wandering eyes. Even worse, he treated his horses cruelly. He struck his mounts with a barbed whip in a frenzy to compel the reluctant beasts to climb up the long, treacherous ascent until the animals were past the point of exhaustion. The horses tried to turn back on more than a few occasions, but Caine’s vicious whip kept them moving forward despite lashes of blood making red crosses on their backs their backs and foam dripping from their mouths. Mirela’s heart went out to the poor animals and she regretted ever hiring this evil man.

Mirela peered out the window at the dark forest they were traversing. The woods were eerily quiet and no wildlife could be seen or heard. But wait… there was something out there. A large, shaggy wolf stared back at her from behind a thorn bush, never breaking its yellow, glowing gaze as its eyes followed the wagon’s crossing. For just an instant as the carriage passed, Mirela and the wolf’s eyes met. Mirela saw the wolf licking its chops and she could tell the creature was wondering what her flesh would taste like. Mirela shivered.

Mirela was the oldest daughter of a Transylvanian family of minor nobility. The village that her father had been the lord of was a bit of backwater compared to most of the voivodeships of the province but it was a beautiful little town that Mirela and her sisters had loved fiercely. The Pierocents had borne only girls; the few male children they had propagated either died early in childhood or were birthed stillborn. With no obvious male heirs, the Pierocent women were the strength and foundation of the family.

“Are we there yet?” Mirela’s sister Loredana complained. “My rump is so sore and aching.”

Loredana’s whining, simpering tone was beginning to wear on her sisters. Loredana’s poor attitude showed itself before they even left their manor and had remained unchanged for the duration of their journey.

Bianca, the second oldest daughter, harrumphed. She said beneath her breath, “If we had a leu for every time you’ve had a sore bottom in your life maybe we wouldn’t be destitute.”

Loredana’s loose skirts were unfortunately a well-known fact to all the men from their village. Bianca not been so quiet as she had assumed. Mirela gave Bianca a withering glare to let her know that this chiding was not helping.

“We are nearly at Castle Sidexes,” Mirela said as she consulted one of her maps and correlated their position to an unusual rock formation in the shape of a hand they had recently passed that served as a landmark. The castle was on no map she had found aside from this decaying parchment kept in her family records. “We should all be enormously grateful to Count Turenau and the rest of his family for taking us in now that we are at our most desperate.”

As the oldest of the sisters, Mirela felt a tremendous amount of responsibility for keeping her siblings safe and cared for. She had always been the most sensible and thoughtful of the Pierocent daughters. Mirela was a handsome young woman whose face was perhaps a bit too hard-edged to be considered truly beautiful. Mirela had hazel-colored eyes that took on an almost greenish tinge under a certain light. She possessed long, flowing brunette hair identical to her mother’s beautiful locks though her appearance took after her father’s side of the family more. Mirela’s skin was the same pale white tone that the rest of her family shared. Despite her smooth, luscious tresses of hair, Mirela often wore her hair up in a tight bun. Mirela had a skinny frame with wide, bony hips and slim waist with two small bulbs for a bosom. She might as well have been flatchested in comparison to her younger sisters.

Today Mirela wore a rugged woolen riding dress colored in white with a high collar and long sleeves. White gloves covered her hands while tall, fashionable brown leather boots covered her legs up to her knees. Mirela’s dress fit loosely upon her and provided little definition to the form of her body. Modest clothing that had been specifically chosen because it did little to entice the eye. The dress proved useful for such an arduous journey and at least prevented Caine from leering at her as often as he did Loredana and Bianca.

Mirela was twenty-seven years old and nearly past the marriageable age of her life. The prospect of spinsterdom loomed if she did not find a husband soon. It wasn’t that Mirela was unattractive or wouldn’t make a fine wife. She knew how to run a household and she descended from a good family that could provide a handsome dowry. But Mirela possessed a keen intelligence and a passionately devout, almost haughty manner that when combined seemed to intimidate men and drive them away from her.

Despite her current reticence, Mirela had been a bit wild in her younger days. She drank ale with men in bawdy taverns and had more than a few romps in the hay with them. It was a strange time for Mirela considering she had never before behaved that way. She had mostly been acting out after her younger sister and best friend Bianca found herself married well before Mirela. The normally pious and sober Mirela behaved this way partly out of jealousy but also due to loneliness after losing her closest sibling. Mirela always ended these whimful trysts as soon as she felt a hand sneak beneath her skirt and run up her thigh. Unlike Loredana, Mirela understood the value of her virginity and the importance to her family of approaching the wedding chapel unsullied. Mirela held a strong Christian faith and planned to go to her marriage bed pure. But she would only be young once and didn’t see any harm in kissing a few boys before binding herself to a man for the rest of her days. Mirela’s irresponsible days were short-lived however. Her youth was tragically cut short and her life irrevocably altered by an accident that occurred five years before.

Merila’s father, Lord Pierocent, had been thrown from his horse while out hunting and landed right on the crown of his head. He was unconscious for over three days before finally awaking from his coma. Lord Pierocent was never quite the same after that. He managed to relearn how to walk, eat, and dress himself but it took longer for his full capacities of speech to return. Though he eventually returned to some semblance of normalcy Lord Pierocent refused to ever ride a horse again. Mirela’s father remained a bit touched in the head, given to muttering and paranoia and unable to wrap his formerly sharp mind around subjects more complex than buttoning his nightshirt.

Mirela’s mother was a gorgeous but rather simple woman who had been married for her beauty and family connections rather than out of any sort of affection or admiration for her intellect or character. She could certainly order the maids and other servants around and was especially adept at planning great feasts and parties but Lady Pierocent proved woefully incapable of managing the family’s finances. She also lacked the organizational mind and ability to devise and implement the planting, buying, and selling of local wheat, rye, and other crops that sustained the family, the townsfolk, the servants, and the serfs who cultivated the land for them. In addition, Mirela’s father owned outright or had invested in several other enterprises including milling, shipping, mining, and metalworks. The family faced a potential disaster without someone shrewd and capable there to manage their dominion competently.

Fortunately, Mirela proved more than capable of overseeing the her father’s dominion. She had observed and assisted her father in his dealings since she became a teenager. Her father had realized early on the powerful intellect that Mirela possessed and began to include her in business decisions from an early age. Mirela formulated her own ideas for how to maintain their family investments but never gave voice to her plans so she would not appear to be contradicting her father’s will. Now that Mirela was thrust by necessity into the position her father formerly held, she implemented the ideas that had previously only been fancies in her mind. Not only did she maintain the Pierocent finances and businesses with aplomb, she actually improved their income by eliminating inefficiencies and making prudent investments. She hired a brilliant young bookkeeper named Bac Disperat who helped expand their holdings even further. Under Mirela’s leadership, the modestly wealthy family quickly became rich.

Though her father technically still held his seat as lord of the voivodeship, Mirela had assumed the role of head of the family in all but name. Mirela assumed this might make her an even more desirable prospect for marriage, but her two younger sisters were the ones who seemed to draw all the attention of men. Running the household took all Mirela’s time and while she had obtained a position of power few women could ever hope of attaining her youth slowly slipped away from her. Mirela’s father might have once been able to pluck a minor lord’s marriageable young son from another province with relative ease for Mirela to wed, but he no longer had the mind to focus on such an undertaking. Mirela’s mother was flighty and seemed rather uncaring for Mirela’s plight. The truth was that her mother resented Mirela for usurping her role as the most powerful and influential female in the household. Lady Pierocent’s oldest child constantly circumvented her wishes for the management of the family manor and wouldn’t cut her in on any of the family business besides providing her an allowance for clothing, furniture, and parties. Mirela instead spent most of their growing fortune on donations to the church and for good works to aid the poor townspeople. Lady Pierocent despised how her own offspring disrespected her and treated her like a kept woman. The servants soon began referring to Mirela as the Lady Pierocent rather than her mother, angering the woman even further. Mirela’s mother could tell her daughter was lonely, but rather than consoling her she hoped to see her miserable for a few more years. Eventually she planned to send Mirela off somewhere far away like France or Austria to be married so she could reassume the title of Lady Pierocent.

Mirela now appeared likely to enter her thirtieth year still unmarried and still a virgin. This should have bothered her, but it didn’t. Mirela cherished her prominent role in the family and realized that women almost never wielded the power and authority she held. Mirela enjoyed her work too much to be tied down to a husband who would not be so accommodating to a woman having such a large degree of power within his household. Mirela planned to settle down once she was good and ready and until then she would continue attaining fabulous wealth and enjoying life to the fullest. But then her parents were brutally murdered.

The half dozen knights that served as their guards swore there was no way the manor could have been infiltrated without them knowing. A fresh snowfall revealed no tracks or footprints indicating how the break-in occurred. Maybe the guards were just saying that to cover their tracks in the face of sheer incompetence. Regardless, on a beautiful, peaceful winter morning Mirela’s mother and father were found murdered in their bedroom. Lord Pierocent’s head had been completely severed from his body while the Lady Pierocent had been discovered lying lifelessly upon her bed with her throat torn messily apart. While gore covered the floor that her father’s body laid upon and the bedsheets where her mother had breathed her last, the bodies of Mirela’s parents were completely drained of blood. The guards found no evidence of a break-in, no weapons left behind, and no apparent motive for such a heinous crime.

The serfs and other servants that worked at the manor were a simple and superstitious folk who naturally assumed some supernatural force had been behind the killings. Some of them even believed Mirela herself was responsible. No woman who had assumed a position of power like hers could possibly possess altruistic intentions. Godly women were not meant to rule but rather be subservient to their fathers and husbands and any woman who believed otherwise belonged to the devil. The servants huddled together in corners of the manor and whispered to themselves quietly, claiming that Mirela was a witch who had cast an enchantment on her father to dull his wits. When that wasn’t enough to attain the power she lusted for Mirela slayed her own parents and drank their blood so she might attain eternal youth.

The servants soon began making the sign of the cross on their chests or spitting on the floor as they passed Mirela in the hallway. It upset Mirela tremendously to find that despite living her life through Christ and doing so much to help the poor she was feared rather than admired. She thought that through her pious nature she might set an example to others but instead the servants who had worked for the family since Mirela was a small child despised her. Though she believed in Hell and the devil as any good Christian would, Mirela didn’t hold with such superstition as these peasants believed. The world had entered the seventeenth century just a decade before, and it marked the beginning of an enlightened age that Mirela hoped would eliminate these backward kinds of beliefs. But these serfs were poorly educated folk who preferred simple answers for the unexplainable.

While the deaths of their parents was shocking, disaster truly struck the family when Bac Disperat disappeared along with all the holdings the Pierocents had ever deposited. Further investigation found that all their money had been divested from the family enterprises in the last few days before their parent’s murders. Mirela appealed to the banks and money lenders they dealt with, claiming these withdrawals were obviously fraudulent. But every bank was able to produce a note that Disperat had provided them upon withdrawal of their funds. The signed and notarized letters all stated that Mirela’s father, of sound mind, had authorized Bac to divest all their savings. Mirela inspected the notes closely and confirmed they were indeed her father’s signature. Mirela had no idea why her father would do such a thing, but it wasn’t like she could ask him now. With Bac still missing along with the family fortune, the Pierocents were destitute.

Mirela did everything she could to keep the household running and take care of her three younger sisters. While the servants were continually suspicious of Mirela, they would continue to work as long as they were still provided food and shelter. Mirela sold several precious family heirlooms in order to keep the serfs fed and working hard. She had banked on this year’s harvest turning enough of a profit to keep the family afloat until Bac could be found and their financial situation resolved. But an unusually wet and cold spring led to a poor harvest eventually turned to a famine that further exacerbated their monetary woes. The servants wondered out loud whether the Pierocent family was cursed due to their daughter’s unimaginable crime. Farmers, maids, gardeners, laundresses: they all began leaving the estate in droves until all but a couple servants and a single guard remained.

Mirela and her sisters went from a life of opulence and excess to having to sell their furniture just to afford bread for dinner. In both Lord Pierocent and then Mirela’s dealings the estate had taken on a sizable amount of debt and loans against their property in order to secure enough funds for their investments. The risk had been worth it, at least at first. The obligations had nearly all been paid off but once the family problems began the debts lingered on unpaid until compounded interest added to the family’s growing deficit. Mirela went over the numbers over and over again but every time she arrived at the same conclusion. They were in danger of losing the manor and all of their land, leaving her and her sisters homeless. Mirela appealed to the lords of nearby provinces for assistance but they proved spiteful and vindictive. They seemed to relish the fact that the formerly richest family in the region had fallen so precipitously.

Just when the family seemed at its lowest, a savior came down from on high to rescue them. Not God obviously, for Mirela’s Lord had apparently decided to abandon the Pierocent daughters. Rather, it was Count Turenau who offered his charity. Mirela had never even heard of the noble Turenau family prior to receiving the first letter from the Count, though he claimed in his correspondence that the Turenaus and Pierocents had a distant family relation. The letter stated that the tale of the Pierocent family’s plight had reached all the way to the remote Castle Sidexes and the Count couldn’t stand idly by while one of the oldest and greatest families in Transylvania suffered such misfortune and injustice. The Count offered to cover her family’s debt so Mirela could repurchase the family plot and protect it from any buyers who intended to steal the ancestral Pierocent home out from under them. In return, the Count only asked that the sisters visit him at his castle so he could meet his new wards and provide them shelter and sustenance while all the messy financial dealings with the Pierocent property were concluded.

Mirela couldn’t have been more relieved. Her nerves had been frayed to the point of severing in the last few months trying in vain to generate some miracle that might allow them to keep their home. Mirela had hardly slept due to the stress and as their resources grew scarce she felt the pangs of true hunger for the first time in her life. She couldn’t help feeling somewhat suspicious of their newest benefactor’s generosity but Mirela did some investigating and found the Count’s family line to be an old and respected one and his claims appeared to be legitimate. Even so isolated that a tax collector probably hadn’t visited Castle Sidexes in generations, the Count continued to pay tribute to the prince ruling the province and had never wavered in support of the Hungarian rulers who had claimed dominion over Transylvania. Sidexes was located in about the most remote corner of the province atop one of the highest mountains. A site so far out of the way that it was considered a legend by most of the common folk. The Count’s wealth seemed to be no myth, however.

The sisters packed up their few meager belongings and bid farewell to the only home they had ever known. Mirela ran her hands over the hardcarved wooden structure of their manor a final time before taking one last long look at the family seal hanging on the mantle above the gilded fireplace in their main hall. The crest displayed two lions with fiery manes bowing to a golden eagle holding a shield in its talons, a symbol that had represented the Pierocent family for generations. The only heirloom they hadn’t yet sold. Mirela thought of taking it with them but they would surely be back here again soon. Surely they would. Mirela sighed in resignation and turned away, walking out of the front door and down the steps to join her sisters waiting for her in the carriage.

“We were near to starving before Count Turenau offered his help,” Mirela reminded her sisters. “The least we can do in gratitude is to meet with our new benefactors and give thanks in person. I for one will enjoy some stability for a change.”

“I don’t like it,” Bianca said as she crossed her arms over her ample chest. “We should be hunting mother and father’s murderers, not entertaining our newest patrons. We need to find Bac Disperat!” Bianca slammed her fist down into the palm of her other hand as she made this declaration. “He seems too much a coward to have performed the evil deed himself, but he surely knows the fiends who did kill Mama and Papa.”

Mirela counted on her fingers their limitations. “Bianca, the only food we have packed is what we found tucked far back in the larder, we have no money after paying for this carriage, no provisions, and no other resources,” Mirela explained. “Need I remind you that I’ve sold all but three of my dresses to pay for staying at that inn last night? I want to bring justice to our parent’s murderers just as much as you do but what can four young women do when they have nothing to their name?”

“More than you think, sister,” Bianca answered quietly as she stroked the long wooden case resting on the seat next to her. Mirela had no idea what was inside the dark brown case but Bianca hadn’t let it out of her sight since their journey began. “Until we have obtained justice, we will never find peace or prosperity.”

“Justice is dead and buried in this land,” Mirela muttered.

Bianca frowned at her older sister. Normally Bianca was the pessimist of the two. Mirela had always been the responsible one, the most reliable and resourceful of the four daughters. The sibling that always had a plan and knew exactly how to execute it. But even Mirela had her limits and it seemed the last few trying months had frazzled the formerly unflappable woman’s nerves. Bianca shuddered, knowing that if something ever happened to Mirela the remaining Pierocents would surely be lost without her leadership.

Bianca was the second oldest of the sisters after Mirela. Unlike her measured, refined older sister Bianca was all pure emotion and raw intensity. A fiercely independent young girl, Bianca had been riding horses, commiserating with the knights as equals, and dressing in scandalously tight male clothing while her other sisters had been learning their manners and how to properly serve their future husbands. Bianca had bright, sparkling blue eyes and long, curly blonde hair. While Mirela more closely resembled their mother, with her pale golden locks Bianca was unquestionably her father’s daughter. Bianca possessed an exquisite beauty and a personality like a raging fire that was liable to flare up at any moment.

Bianca would have preferred her normal clothing choice of a shirt and trousers today but Mirela had insisted on Bianca wearing a dress for their introduction to Count Turenau. The blue satin weave of her dress was decidedly ill-fitting since Brianca preferred not to reveal the enticing curves of her body. Bianca knew she had a form that drew a man’s eye and had always despised the unwanted attention. The only man she had ever worn revealing clothing for was her late husband. Back when she was still married, Bianca used to commission a special clothing designer from a Wallachian city to weave extremely revealing nightgowns for Bianca to wear for her spouse. Bianca relished the shocked look showing on her husband’s face when she removed her plain, demure dress to reveal a transparent negligee that didn’t even bother to hide her nipples or obscure the outlines of her buttocks and her sex.

Lord Pierocent had married off his second daughter when she was at the earliest marriageable age of eighteen in an attempt to tame an unruly and rebellious girl. This had been the year just before his fateful accident. Bianca was arranged in a marriage to the son of a merchant who owned a mining company that Lord Pierocent had become heavily invested in. It was true that Bianca had married below her class, but Lord Pierocent recognized that the new money of this rising merchant class would someday rival the ruling nobility in power and wanted to help ensure both Bianca and the rest of the Pierocent’s future by joining with one of the stronger business families of Transylvania.

If Lord Pierocent thought marriage would temper his daughter’s attitude, he was sorely mistaken. The young man Bianca married proved to have just as fiery and strong willed a personality as Bianca. They were a perfect match. Their lovemaking had been passionate and wild, with Bianca allowing her husband to do things to her that no decent Christian wife should allow. Mirela saw Bianca rarely during the time she was married though she did catch wind of some scandalous rumors that had been spread about her sister. According to hearsay, Bianca and her husband practiced a sort of open marriage. The rumors among the servants at Bianca’s new home were that Bianca allowed her husband to sleep any maid of his choosing as long as Bianca was permitted to ride one of the merchant guards whenever she wished. Even more scandalously, Bianca and her husband supposedly invited others to join them in their marriage bed. Rumors said this included partners both male and female who were invited to participate in the married couple’s sexual activities. Mirela never learned for certain if there was any truth to these rumors. Though she would be very disappointed to learn the gossip was indeed factual, Mirela never mentioned the rumors to Bianca even after the death of her husband. Mirela respected that the details of Bianca’s personal life belonged to none but Bianca herself.

Bianca’s parents had been disappointed that their daughter was married for nearly five years and had yet to produce a child. Bianca and her husband had no desire at that time in their lives to raise a child. They enjoyed drinking, feasting, racing horses, fencing, and copulating far too much to worry about a baby. They had plenty of time left for chasing little brats around and performing their familial duties. The whole rest of their lives they had thought. But the blood of Bianca’s husband ran hot through his veins, and when she was twenty-three he got in a drunken argument with other men at a tavern who had insulted Bianca’s honor by inviting her to perform sexual acts for them. Bianca’s husband had been slain in what the constabulary called a duel but was truly a massacre with five men pitted against a single one. Bianca’s husband managed to take two of his assailants to the grave with him before he expired from over two dozen stab wounds.

The death of Bianca’s husband had been a shock to everyone in the family except for Bianca. She always knew this sort of thing could happen considering how hotheaded her husband could be. The only thing shocking to Bianca was that she had been widowed at such an early age. Mirela invited Bianca to return to the manor to live with the rest of the family but instead Bianca disappeared for several months.

No one knows the truth of what happened next, but Mirela made her best guess based on her memories of Bianca being taught the use of a sword as a teenager by a blind old knight named Demn. Demn had served the family since before Mirela was born and continued to swear fealty and in return be supported by Lord Pierocent despite the elderly guard’s disability. He had after all lost both eyes because of the slash of a bandit’s sword that had been intended for Lord Pierocent’s throat. Old Demn had lost none of his lucidity due to his advanced age and despite his lack of vision he instructed Bianca well in the ways of the blade.

Two months after the death of Bianca’s husband the three surviving of his murderers were found with their throats slit and covered in multiple sword wounds. Only once they were dead did Bianca return home, now bearing a nasty gash across her cheek that became a permanent scar. The since-healed mark on Bianca’s right cheek was her only visible flaw.

“Why did we have to leave?” Loredana wailed suddenly. Bianca and Mirela looked at each other and both rolled their eyes. Loredana’s constant complaints had begun to wear on them. “I had three beautiful boys courting me,” she lamented. “It was only a matter of time before one of them proposed. Now it’s gone, all gone…” Loredana laid her face in her hands and wept.

“They were never going to marry you Loredana, you stupid cow,” Bianca growled at her sister. “They were just stringing you along until they could get their pricks wet with you. Which we all know was eventually going to happen.”

“Bianca, will you desist?” Mirela demanded with a snarl. “How are we supposed to make it through these troubles if the four of us are constantly at each other’s throats?”

Loredana sobbed loudly and wept even more prodigiously into her hands. The truth was she had already slept with each of her three suitors. If anything she was the one stringing them along, enticing them with her beautifully shapely body and deliciously naughty ways in the hopes she could convince all three of them to propose. Loredana then planned to take her pick between them but these troubles had ruined all her little plots.

While Mirela was a pretty woman and Bianca was truly beautiful their little sister Loredana was in an entirely different realm in terms of attractiveness. Loredana wore long her beautiful, fiery red hair that contrasted perfectly with her vibrantly green eyes. She had a full-toothed, mischievous smile and a lovely face that appeared to be by all accounts flawless.

When Loredana was a girl, Mirela and Bianca had teased her mercilessly about how her features were unlike any of their other family members. They claimed Loredana was a foundling who had been left on the stoop of the manor one night after a witch had devoured Loredana’s real family as punishment for Loredana not listening to her siblings. So she had better obey her new sisters or else. This led to screaming and crying fits that only calmed once Lord Pierocent held Loredana closely and spoke to her of his own grandfather who had possessed the very same shock of fiery red hair as Loredana.

Loredana had a perfect number of freckles dotting her face, enough that they were apparent enough to contribute to her adorable features without becoming her dominating feature. Unlike Mirela who possessed a figure similar to a tall, lanky man, Loredana’s shorter, wider body was more shapely like Bianca’s. Bianca and Loredana both possessed wide hips with curvy thighs and sides while also boasting impressively sized chests. But instead of dressing herself in the least revealing clothes she owned as Bianca or Mirela did, Loredana went out of her way to show off the snake-like curves of her body so that her breasts, thighs, hips, and buttocks were emphasized as much as possible. The green dress she wore today had a low cut to display most of her cleavage and a short ruffled skirt with a hem that ended scandalously above her shins.

Loredana’s beauty and her ability to easily attract men had a downside though. She loved sex to an unhealthy degree. Even since pubescence she had drawn the eyes of men who noticed how well she had developed and Loredana developed a liking for having a man’s prick inside her at an early age. It didn’t matter to her who it was with, as long as they had a decent sized cock. It could be with someone noble like the son of one of the minor lords of the province or someone as lowly as one of their bodyguards or a local shepherd. Whenever Loredana wanted a man, she had them. And she wanted often. Loredana was only twenty and Mirela had already had to arrange a doctor’s visit thrice to take care of Loredana’s mistakes. Who knew who the fathers even were, they could have been any number of men living in the village. With her reckless ways, Loredana threatened to bring shame down upon the entire family. On several occasions, Mirela recalled her father screaming at Loredana and accusing her of spreading her thighs apart for every young man living within a hundred miles.

Though Lord Pierocent’s increasingly addled and paranoid mind exaggerated, the accusation was probably not that far from the truth. Loredana had once disappeared from the manor for days after yet another one of these arguments with her father. After she was missing long enough, Lady Pierocent sent a reluctant Mirela to locate and retrieve Loredana. Mirela finally found her sister staying at an inn a few villages away. When Mirela opened the door to Loredana’s room, she found her sister naked as the day she was born on her bed and writhing on all fours between two vile, common-looking men. One of the men ran his hands over Loredana’s curved torso as he penetrated her roughly from behind. Loredana bounced her body back against him, inviting the ugly, grinning man to shove his prick deeper inside her. Loredana had somehow managed to unhinge her jaw and she held her mouth wide open as the man on the opposite end of her thrust his member down her willing mouth into her throat. The second man held Loredana’s head in place with his hands gripping the sides of her skull as he used her mouth for a fuckhole. The choking and gagging noises coming from Loredana’s throat were disgustingly obscene.

Mirela had never even conceived of taking two men at the same time before witnessing this debauchery. It was not a concept she would have dreamed possible, but here was the proof of it occurring right before her. Mirela threw the man behind Loredana off of her and pulled her sister away as she screamed at the men to leave. The foul-looking peasants laughed as they got dressed and thanked Loredana for the good times they enjoyed the last few nights before they left with a wink. Mirela threw clothing at Loredana and ordered her to get dressed immediately.

Loredana didn’t even have the decency to blush or look ashamed at being caught spitroasted between two peasants. She actually had the audacity to suggest that Mirela go apologize to the men and invite them back upstairs so they could engage in an orgy. Loredana said that Mirela could finally lay with a man if she just took that stick out of her arse and let one of the men fill that empty spot instead. Mirela didn’t think she had ever been more furious at Loredana, but couldn’t let herself grow too angry since she realized the silly girl truly couldn’t help herself. Mirela grabbed Loredana by the ear and tugged on it hard to force her outside and pulled it harder every time Loredana resisted or started complaining. That seemed the only way to convince her to return home. Everyone having a pint at the inn laughed with entertainment at Mirela putting her sister in her place. Mirela would have spanked her sister too if she didn’t think Loredana would enjoy it. Mirela wished this were the only time Loredana had been caught in a compromising position but this was just one story out of many.

Bianca turned to the sister sitting next to her and shook her arm. “Bela, please speak with us,” Bianca pleaded. “Tell us what you know. Anything you can share would aid us.”

Bela barely seemed to notice Bianca tugging at her sleeve. Her hands rested in her lap as she stared at the scenery through the window view mutely. Bela had reached her eighteenth year only a week before and her official passing of adolescence to adulthood had not been a particularly happy one. Bela had been the first to discover their parent’s bodies and whatever she had seen in their bedroom so disturbed her that she had been completely silent the long months since. Bela’s older sisters hoped the shock would wear off eventually but the horror Bela had witnessed must have been too great for her simple mind to comprehend. Mirela, Bianca, and Loredana began to wonder if Bela would ever again utter another word.

Bela had inherited few of the good traits her sisters had. She did not possess Mirela’s intelligence and sensibility, or Bianca’s courage and passion, nor Loredana’s radiance and beauty. Compared to the rest of her siblings, Bela appeared dim and rather dumpy. She was almost an afterthought in human form. She did have a pleasant, patient, eager to please personality though and her sisters all loved her unequivocally. While the older Pierocent girls constantly bickered among themselves even before they found themselves untethered to their previously privileged existence, they reserved none of their ire for their youngest sister who was always too gentle and sweet to involve herself in the disputes that consumed the siblings.

Bela had brown eyes and long brunette hair similar in color to the tresses that Mirela had inherited from their mother, though Bela’s shading was a much lighter brown. Her hair seemed rather stringy and wiry instead of silky and luscious like Mirela’s. Bela’s face was somewhat plain though she looked pleasant enough whenever she smiled. She hadn’t made that expression nor any other in quite a while however. Bela’s body was short and plump, though more filled out and less defined than the curves of Loredana or Bianca. Bela did possess a sweet and docile demeanour and even if her features weren’t the most striking she would have made a fine wife to any man before these troubles began. But all that was over now. Her mind had been damaged by what she had seen, perhaps irreparably so.

“Will you speak with us or not?” Bianca demanded as she shook Bela’s shoulder roughly. “The one chance you have in your life to actually be of use…”

“Oh, let her alone!” Loredana pleaded.

“Loredana’s right, Bela has been through enough,” Mirela added. “She doesn’t relive the most traumatic event of her life. I swear your wicked tongue is going to be the death of us all, Bianca.”

“Oh, will you fuck off sister,” Bianca said with a roll of her eyes.

Loredana and Mirela both gasped in unison at the language spewing from Bianca’s mouth. Mirela was far too refined to ever utter such coarseness. Loredana had used the curse word numerous times as a verb when telling a lover what she wanted them to do to her but she only did that when she was behaving absolutely filthy. She would never speak such an obscenity in fine company or around her family.

“What did you say to me?” Mirela asked icily.

“I said fuck off already,” Bianca reiterated with a snarl. “We all realize how perfect you are, so quit rubbing it in our faces all the time. We all know you are the darling child, the one who can never do wrong. As if we could ever forget it coming from the one who always tattled on us to Mama when we were girls. You’ve always been better than us, at least in your own mind. Yes, you were Papa’s favorite child, the only one he trusted. You were never a rebellious child like I was or a slut like Loredana.” Loredana bristled and shrank into her corner of the cab as Bianca turned toward her.

“Nor a simpleton like Bela,” Bianca continued as she indicated the sister sitting next to her. “But despite your pretenses, you are just as flawed as the rest of us. Your perfection is your very imperfection. Your self-righteousness and refusal to ever admit when you are wrong is detestable. No wonder no one will marry you. Like any sensible man would let a woman lord over him the way you do to the rest of your family.”

Loredana made a frightened squeak and looked back and forth between her older sisters. “You go too far,” she told Bianca.

Contrary to her normally unbreakable composure, Mirela wilted under Bianca’s verbal assault and sank into her seat. Mirela stared down at her hands in her lap and promised herself she wouldn’t cry. When she looked up after a moment of reflection Mirela noticed that Bianca was chewing at her lip and had a worried look in her eyes. Bianca knew she had crossed a line.

Mirela cleared her throat, looked directly at Bianca and said carefully, “I don’t mean to be so commanding, I really don’t. I’m so sorry if you feel that way. I just want what’s best for everyone. I need to realize that what I want is not always the same as what others desire and that I have to okay with that. I’m not perfect, I make mistakes. I never should have hired Bac, who betrayed us. I should have realized far sooner how much money we had lost trying to make the next harvest when we could have been saving what we had to stave off this disaster. I’m always willing to listen to my sisters if you know a better way. I love and respect you all too much to think otherwise.”

Now Bianca was the one who looked like she was about to cry. Her watery blue eyes stared into Mirela’s pretty hazel pupils as her lips quivered. Bianca voice wavered with remorse as she took ahold of Mirela’s hands and said, “I didn’t mean what I said, Mellie. Please believe me. You are our foundation, we depend on you for so much and I can’t imagine how difficult that must be for you. I didn’t mean to say such awful things. It’s just losing our home and our family… it’s getting to me.”

“I know you didn’t mean it, Bianca,” replied Mirela as she gave Bianca’s hand a squeeze and drew a smirk from Bianca’s rosebud mouth. “We’ve just been cooped up in this carriage for far too long together. It’s no wonder we are snapping at each other. Now when are we going to reach this damned castle?” Loredana and Bianca couldn’t help smiling at each other over Mirela cursing, even if it was a minor oath.

As if on cue, the carriage topped a rise and a large, black castle appeared in the distance. The castle was located next to a steep cliff near a large crack between two of the mountains that a road was built upon. The grounds of the castle stood upon the only passable trail through these mountains. The perfect fortress and a bulwark preventing any invading armies from using the mountain path as a rear entrance. The sharp, spiked spires topping the towers of the castle cast a grim appearance on the surrounding countryside wherever their long shadows touched. During the time that the sisters had been bickering, the sun set rapidly. The orangeish glow shining over the trees and mountains surrounding the castle had begun to turn a deep blue as the sky darkened. Once the carriage topped the final rise leading up to the castle, Mirela realized that with how isolated they were there would be no escape for them once the carriage departed.

“I really hope we made the right choice, Mellie,” Bianca murmured as their carriage neared the castle gates. Mirela had just been hoping for the same.

THE END OF CHAPTER ONE